Frances was near crying as the other girls of her ABA (applied behaviour analysis) group walked into the reception area.

“I’m not going,” she told me.

“I don’t want to go somewhere without you,” she said. She was pouting.

“You didn’t consult me. You didn’t even ask me if I wanted to do this,” she reminded me.

The ABA interventionist/group leader tried to talk to her, but Frances buried her face into my coat.

Then the group leader uttered the magic words:

“We have dolls!”

Frances looked up. “OK,” she said. “And Barbies?”

The kid didn’t even look back at me as she walked down the hall. 

That was last month, and she has only grumbled a bit beforehand since then; there’s a much smoother transition now.